


My Brightest Star

by Virtuella



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27175357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Virtuella/pseuds/Virtuella
Summary: Lucifer thinks he knows all about his great fall into hell and about the source of all his anger. However, as per usual, he doesn't really understand. Dr Linda has done what she can to help him see the light, but perhaps Lucifer needs to hear it from someone else entirely.
Relationships: Chloe Decker & Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 15
Kudos: 38





	My Brightest Star

**Author's Note:**

> As a theologian, I find this show endlessly fascinating, because it skilfully exposes the bad theology and the frustrating misconceptions that I see bandied about so much. So I wanted to set the record straight...

It’s not as you think, Samael. It’s not as you think at all. You’ve got it all upside down, inside out, back to front. When you look at me, you don’t see me; you see your own ideas reflected back at you. In the empty space between us, between your face and mine, you see something else, some shadowy object that exists only in your mind. Negative space is what artists call it, so I shouldn’t be surprised that you respond so angrily to what you think you see. I want to urge you now to look again. See what’s really there.

  
You know why I hardly ever speak anymore? It’s because people always put words into my mouth, or twist the ones I said. So I’ve gone silent. It seemed safer that way. But the time has come that I must speak with you, Samael. Let me spell it out to you, so there is no misunderstanding: I love you. I do.

Oh, Samael, my incandescent child. From the beginning, no one shone brighter than you. No one had greater passion, for better or for worse. You are capable of greater love than anyone else and, because there are always two sides to a coin, of greater hatred as well. And my heart has been throbbing with pain watching you give way to that hatred and turn it against yourself. I let you go, Samael, because I couldn’t bear it. I was at a loss.

You keep talking about your failed rebellion, and I suppose it did fail, though not in the way you think. You see, young people must rebel, especially the extraordinary ones. How else could they grow into outstanding adults? Total obedience is barren and futile; it only replicates, never creates. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Innocence were like children, carefree and naïve. Should I have kept them that way? You cannot truly think that. You of all people must know that I had to give them a choice. And it was good that they chose knowledge, but with knowledge comes responsibility and that is a tough lesson to learn. They got off to a shaky start on that one; nevertheless, they had become self-aware, ready to leave the garden and face the real world with all its challenges. Yes, I could have withheld the choice, could have left out that tree, and their lives would have been a never-ending vacation. An innocent bliss without struggle or growth. Do you think they would have thanked me for that? Would you?

But I digress. Your own rebellion was inevitable and of course, since it was yours, it had to be more spectacular than anyone else’s. Now I won’t say that you were in the wrong, but even then, you misunderstood. And from then on, one misunderstanding followed another until you were completely trapped in a prison of your own misconceptions. I saw it with sorrow, and for a long, long time, I didn’t know how to help you.

Yes, yes, I know what your mother told you. I won’t call her a liar, but you must know that she, too, has a gift for misunderstanding me. And it is true that I pushed you out, though it was only meant to give you the time and space to cool down. Teachers do the same thing with agitated children, and after a little while, when tempers have subsided, there is talk, and reconciliation, and moving forward. It seems a sensible approach. How could I have known that you would run away entirely? Though, yes, perhaps I should have known. It was you, after all.

You are so clever, Samael, which makes it all the more ironic that you simply cannot see the truth about yourself and your alleged punishment. As you keep telling anyone who’ll listen, people send themselves to hell. They create their own punishment. And you, my extravagant child, truly went to town with the hell loop you built for yourself. You revelled in it for millennia. Will you believe me when I say I was glad to see you finally getting tired of it?

I understand. You love punishment, because you hate injustice. You hate injustice with a burning passion and this is, and always will be, your greatest merit. And I agree with you. Still, there are different ways of going about it, as you have learned in recent years. We should rethink the whole concept. What does punishment achieve in the end? Way back in time, I thought it was a good thing to give people a conscience to keep them on the right path. Well, to some extent it works. But the problem I didn’t foresee is this: For some reason, not all consciences are the same. So now those people with finely tuned consciences torture themselves over small matters, while those whose consciences are crippled never believe that they’ve done anything wrong. I saw you squirm when Linda asked you how you torture Hitler and Mussolini in hell. You couldn’t lie, but you certainly didn’t want to tell her that they’re not even there.

Hell makes no sense, Samael. We both know it. Nobody deserves to be punished for all eternity. And what’s the point of meting out justice after a person is dead and can no longer do anything about it? Once upon a time, perhaps, the mere thought of going to hell would have deterred some people from doing wrong, but who even believes in hell anymore these days? And yet it is real: the grim, solid fallout from all their guilt and anguish and self-loathing. It’s the sediment of eons of evil, of every injustice and every cruel deed throughout history, and every day it grows a little more. It’s a blemish on creation, and you and I, Samael, must join forces to deal with it. I cannot do this by myself. I need you.

And that’s not even all. Humankind has got out of hand. Just another thing I didn’t see coming, though I should have. Free will means choices, and choices have consequences. I accepted that, and the evil and suffering that would come along with it, because I wanted my children to be free. And I thought that because they had not eaten from the Tree of Eternal Life, there would be limits to their power and hence to the evil they could do. As it turns out, it was my imagination that was limited. I did not foresee this.

  
Right, right, I will get to the point: Most people, including you, still think of evil as an individual and personal deed. Murder, rape, adultery. And of course that remains true. However, by virtue of their ingenuity, humans have gained power way beyond their individual lives. They are able now to wreak havoc that cannot be undone in thousands of years. They have created weapons that can annihilate their own kind many times over. They drive whole species to extinction. And now they are hit by plagues and floods and droughts that are of their own making. They are coming close to extinguishing all life on Earth, even to killing the Earth itself. I gave them a planet that provided abundantly for their needs, and with the work of their hands and minds they have amplified that abundance beyond my wildest dreams and yet people still starve and freeze and are shut out from the smallest of comforts. Children go hungry in countries overflowing with food. In many places, the sick are denied medicine if they cannot pay. The rich pile up more riches than they can ever make use of while others are trodden into the mud. There is greater injustice now than ever before in all of history. It is collective and structural and entangles even the best of people in its twisted nets. It is injustice so monstrous that most people cannot even see it, because it shatters the human scale. Can you see it, Samael?

I wanted to set my children free, and I knew they might hurt themselves, but I never thought it could come to this. I do not know, not yet, how to fix this, but I do know that I cannot do it alone. Once again I say, I need you, Samael, my brightest star of all. I have known this for a while. But you cannot help me while you are so broken. So I have been thinking, over and over, how I could help you to become whole again. You were trapped in your hatred of yourself, and I was looking for a way to release the love you locked away inside you. And I found a way, though you misunderstood me again there, too. You thought I created Chloe to manipulate you. That is all upside down, inside out, back to front, like I said before. For Chloe was already on her way into this world when Amenadil bestowed the blessing on Penelope. All I did was to give her one special gift: the ability to see past the dazzling cloak of deception you had woven around yourself. I didn’t make her fall in love with you, or you fall in love with her. All I did was give you a chance. Chloe was born with the capacity to love you, but actually winning her heart – you did that all by yourself, as you needed to. And I cannot begin to tell you how overjoyed I am that you succeeded.

I am asking nothing of you for now. Just abandon yourself to the love that has been unlocked. Let it make you whole again, let it quell your anguish and smooth all your scars. Release the angel. We will have work to do together, but not until you are fully healed. I trust you will come to me when you are ready. Until then, bask in the joy. You, more than anyone else, deserve it.

**Author's Note:**

> Perhaps when the new episodes are aired, they will contradict what I've written here. So I grabbed my window of opportunity. ;-)


End file.
